Under the time pressures of daily life, individuals are seeking more efficient ways to address personal hygienic needs. For example, two-in-one shampoos that cleanse and condition in a single step are widely used by the consuming public. This same convenience is sought by consumers in the form of skin cleansing products that clean like bar soap, but also condition the skin. Likewise, consumers seek skin creams, lotions, and other such compositions that can deliver more than one consumer-desired benefit. Furthermore, consumers seek products that not only provide at least one personal care benefit, but also have an aesthetically pleasing appearance, thus enhancing the consumer's enjoyment of product use.
Early attempts at providing such products employed dual-chamber packaging containing, for example, separate cleansing and conditioning products. The separate conditioning and cleansing compositions remain physically separate and stable during prolonged storage. These packages were designed to co-dispense the products together to effectuate simultaneous cleaning and conditioning. In another embodiment, the cleaning and conditioning products are mixed just prior to dispensing. Although such dual-chamber delivery systems seemed to provide the improved convenience sought by consumers, they frequently failed to achieve consistent and uniform performance because of the uneven dispensing of the different phases that can be inherent in such a dual-chamber system. This also often led to consumer frustration, as one chamber would be emptied through use long before the other chamber was exhausted, resulting in wasted, unused product. Additionally, these packaging systems add considerable cost to the finished product and tended to be obtrusive in areas such as usual home tub/showers.
Alternatively, compositions comprising two visually distinct phases were combined in typical, top-dispensing (e.g., pump, jar, bottle) product packaging for simultaneous dispensing of both phases. These products required special processing wherein two initially separate and distinct phase compositions are channeled to a filling head and simultaneously dispensed into a rotating package or container. Stirring the product in the filling head during packaging is achieved by using a plurality of stirring rods disposed about the filling head. These products, while having a visually attractive “spiral” appearance in the container before use, can easily lose their attractiveness once the product is used. For instance, as the bottle is turned upside-down and squeezed to dispense product through the bottle orifice, then turned up-right again for storage, the product's initially-attractive multi-phased appearance can be disrupted by the movement of an air bubble throughout the product as the product is turned upside-down then back to up-right position. This leads to a product that quickly loses the desired aesthetic appearance, thus detracting from the consumer's usage experience. Furthermore, the same pattern disruption can occur during transport of the product from manufacturing facility to the consumer point of purchase, thus resulting in products having an undesirable appearance even before use.
On the basis of the discussion above, there still remains a need for making a single product that dispenses from routine packaging, yet maintains its desired multi-phase appearance.